Agentic mode enabled

It took them eight episodes, but Si and Neil finally tackle AI. No future predictions (well, almost), no hot takes, just two engineering managers sharing what they're actually doing with these tools, what's surprised them, and what still makes them nervous. They cover using LLMs as thinking partners, the difference between AI that writes code and AI that helps you engineer better, agentic tools and what happens when you give them real access, and why good engineering practices might matter more now, not less. Oh, and they do make some predictions at the end. They'll probably be wrong. That's kind of the point. Timestamped to April 2026. This will be outdated by the time you listen to it. CHAPTERS 00:00 - Illness, delays and finally talking about AI 04:32 - Framing it: LLMs vs AI as a broader term 06:09 - How Si and Neil are using AI day to day 12:41 - AI baked into everything: Copilot, Confluence and the Microsoft rebrand 16:24 - The accelerant problem: AI amplifies what's already there 19:38 - Industry noise, AI fatigue and working out the real value 30:06 - Agentic AI: what it is and why it changes things 34:01 - What they've learned from using LLMs (tips for getting started) 50:07 - Predictions: AI in engineering this time next year 53:32 - The future of EMs, QA and small teams USEFUL LINKS Dave Farley - Modern Software Engineering (Continuous Delivery): https://www.youtube.com/c/ContinuousDelivery Microsoft Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com Cursor (AI code editor): https://www.cursor.com GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot Claude (Anthropic): https://claude.ai OpenClaw (agentic AI tool): https://openclau.ai Notion AI: https://www.notion.com/product/ai CONNECT WITH US Si Jobling - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sijobling/ Neil Younger - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-younger/ Listen wherever you get your podcasts. CREDITS Produced by Unstyled Studios. Artwork by Si. Edited in Descript. Hosted on Pinecast. Support Managing Engineers by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/managingengineers Find out more at http://podcast.managingengineers.net Read transcript